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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    We're certainly open to new lines of discussion... the Macross Delta stuff has been pretty thin on the ground, and will likely continue to be for a month or two yet (assuming SoftBank breaks the habit of a lifetime and pubishes the VF-31 Master File on time). The only AVF-related topic I've been pursuing in the past few weeks while I wait for Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried is the apparent proliferation of the VF-171EX in the 2060s. For a moderately unstable limited-production VF developed and built in a single emigrant fleet as a hasty modernization to oppose the Vajra, the Nightmare Plus EX is surprisingly well-traveled. The local New UN Forces, the elite NUNS Special Forces unit Havamal, and even the bandits on Uroboros manage to get their hands on them... complete with anti-Vajra weapons. The Macross Delta gaiden manga Macross E also puts 'em in the hands of the Xaos branch office on Vivre/Pipure. It seems like a Gen 4.5 has a lot of appeal in the poorer sectors of the galaxy.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Assuming she exists at all... and isn't just a corgi in a control room somewhere. ... considering how phallic the Zentradi ships are, what makes you so certain it'll be ship girls...?
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The point was that what you're describing is a very general, very generic set of basic tropes common to most mecha shows... not revisited plot elements or recurring characters/factions/etc. At the very, VERY basic level you described, yes... otherwise, not s'much. Macross Zero is actually a good example of what I was talking about in terms of minimal recurring material and an unwillingness to revisit old factions and themes. Roy Focker's secondary character status is the ONLY carryover material in the entire OVA... everything else was all-new: The OVA does not revisit any familiar settings, taking place as it does entirely on the newly-introduced island of Mayan and the oceans surrounding it. The OVA's themes about preserving nature (I guess?) never come up in another Macross title. The OVA is not set during any previously documented era in Macross in-universe history, given that the Unification Wars as depicted in Super Dimension Fortress Macross ended the previous year. The OVA's antagonist is not featured in any previous Macross series, and ceases to exist in-universe shortly after the OVA's events, so they never appear again. The OVA has only one recurring character from a previous series (Roy Focker), and only one character from the OVA is ever mentioned after the OVA (Mao Nome, and only then as a posthumous character that IIRC didn't have a speaking role). All other characters are all-new and are not seen or mentioned again after the OVA. The OVA has no recurring mechanical designs from a previous Macross series, the closest being the HWR-00-Mk.IP Monster which is different enough to be obviously distinct from the Mk.II in Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The OVA's macguffin/plot coupon is never acknowledged again after the events of the OVA, except in a dramatization filmed a half-century later after the events were declassified, which has no bearing on the conflcit in its native series. Basically... Macross Zero demonstrated that Macross's creators will go back to earlier dates on the calendar IF they can set the story up in a way that it's as close to completely separate from any previous Macross story as possible so they're not tied down by existing material.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Considering Isamu served there... you'd probably have to be enough of a frequent flier to the stockade that your CO wants to get rid of you by sending you to Space Siberia.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Well, thus far Macross's creators are opposed to direct sequels and recurring antagonists, so it seems a safe bet we're done with Walkure and the Kingdom of the Wind... or the world's most agonizing Earth Wind and Fire joke. To be frank, what you listed there is almost a perfectly generic plot outline for any mecha series in which the main character isn't already in a heroic (para)military outfit at the start. Swap "love triangle" for "love interest" and take out the bit about idols and you've got a framework for anything from Evangelion to Gundam. Mind you, that's not what I'm talking about... nor are the occasional continuity nods and homages we get to remind the audience that this is part of a bigger franchise. What I AM talking about is that Macross is not a franchise that likes to tread old ground. Discounting the movies that tell an alternate version of the story from a series, the nature of Macross's main theme is such that we don't get recurring antagonists in the franchise. By the end of the story they're either dead or they've seen the error of their ways and stopped the fighting. They haven't had a battle with a Zentradi Army Main Fleet since the original series and DYRL?, sentient virtuoids like Sharon Apple are illegal, three of the seven Protodeviln died and the other four buggered off for parts unknown leaving their slave army behind to be de-brainwashed, Anti-Unification Forces had already disbanded before the First Space War wiped the survivors out, the Vajra buggered off to another galaxy after reaching a mutual understanding with humanity, Havamal was decimated, and the Kingdom of the Wind is reeling after Roid's de facto coup d'etat and having lost a good chunk of their forces including three of their seven top aces and is probably well on its way back to being an economically and politically irrelevant hick planet so far out in the space boonies that you can hear the banjos from orbit. It's largely the same with main and supporting characters. Outside of Max and Milia, it's SOP to have characters never appear again once their story arc is over. Isamu is a rare exception, and they don't even show his face onscreen. Obviously there are practical reasons for it, but every new series offers up a new main fighter for the protagonists too, so barring the occasional continuity nod we don't have any two story arcs that share the same VFs either. The same is done to themes. Macross's creators love to reinvent the wheel... they take the same basic tropes, but stretch them over a story in a different shape every time, which helps keep things fresh. It makes Macross less predictable, at least in pre-production, since we don't have the Gundam-esque consistency of being able to ask "So what are we calling the space Nazis this year?".
  6. Seto Kaiba
    They've appeared on a number of transfer sheets for various Macross model kits... Different versions of the Shinsei Industry logo have appeared in Variable Fighter Master File, on page 119 of the VF-19 book and page 122 of the VF-0 book. The General Galaxy logo appears on page 24 of the VF-22 book.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    In manga form, yes... with modernized aesthetics.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    The Compendium's timeline mentions the ones on Isamu's bio... but we have no in-universe details about those conflicts, so it's basically just repetition of the same information in the screen capture. It also mentions some of the brushfire conflicts that were depicted in Macross M3 and Macross VF-X2 in slightly more detail.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    So... a Macross story about a group of misfits and incompetents who triumph over adversity more by luck than good judgment? We just got done with that. Yes please! I'm sick of having to get my badass lady fighter pilot fix from Macross manga and light novels. Gimme another Milia, Komilia, Sylvie, or Chelsea please!
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I'd call that a victory of sorts, yeah. The poll doesn't quite capture the truth of the matter... there were a lot of us who liked the individual pieces of the show, but felt the writing didn't effectively gel them together into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. As a result, I think there's high hopes for this next series being able to more effectively merge the stunning visuals that've become standard fare with their newest story.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    No, I am not wrong... you are, I'm afraid, and I can prove it. You claim Nemoto didn't write any episode after #14. I'm certainly looking forward to your explanation of this screen capture from Episode 26, which shows him being credited with the screenplay for that episode. Shoji Kawamori did not write ANY of the 26 screenplays used in Macross Delta.In point of fact, Toshizo Nemoto has a solo screenplay writing credit on episodes 1-6, 9, 10, 12-15, 19, 21, and 23-26. He's also credited as co-writing the screenplay for episode 8 with Ukyo Kodachi. Episodes 7, 11, 17, 18, and 22 had their screenplays written by Tatsuo Higuchi. Episodes 16 and 20 had screenplays by Touko Machida. Apart from directing and being chief director, Kawamori's only credits are shared credits for storyboarding on episodes 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 14, 16, 17, and 22, and solo storyboard credits on episodes 13 and 26. I can provide screen captures from the credits to attest to all of these facts. You can't blame Kawamori for the writing in Macross Delta because he demonstrably didn't write it. Like George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry or Yoshiyuki Tomino he comes up with some weird stuff and can really make a hard-to-watch show when he's left to his own devices. That's why, just like all those other blokes I just named, his ideas are developed by other people who actually outline the series and write the screenplays. This new series will likely be no different in that respect. Kawamori will lob a concept over the wall and the designated writers will pick it apart, tweak it into new shapes, flesh it out, and punt it back over the wall as a screenplay for storyboarding. That's how it worked on every Macross series except for Macross II: Lovers Again, which he didn't work on. Franchise seems to be doin' just fine, the DX's are still selling like hotcakes, the video games are coming out regularly, manga titles are in serialization, novelizations coming out regularly, Walkure playing to packed houses and regularly charting near the top... it would seem like, while Delta was not the strongest offering to date, plenty of fans found it eminently watchable and good. So I suppose it's a YMMV thing between your special personal definition of "good" and that of the target audience. Y'know, I'm pretty sure one of the Macross Quarter-class ships mentioned in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah was the Macross Half. IIRC there was a Macross One-Third too. Come to that, I'd be down for either another show in the 2060s with a Macross Quarter-class or a historical title set between the original series and Plus ala Macross M3. Hell, I'd love to see them go back and animate Macross 2036... some VF-1 action AND a grown-up Komilia? 's that what that was? I honestly couldn't find an Aesop in Zero, it was either really well hidden by all the Kadun stuff or not there at all. Zero was damned pretty, but would've been a lot better if the plot wasn't so obtuse. That's one reason I want a longer run from this new series, so there isn't the opportunity for there to be too much plot left at the end of the episode... I want to avoid the kind of situation that necessitates either exposition dumps like Delta did or incredible vagueness like Zero resorted to. I am 210% OK with The Seatbelts doing music for a Macross series... just puttin' that out there. Still, I somehow can't help but picture something like TM Revolution being used for a Macross the Ride-style series.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Eh, maybe... but SV2 was actually good at it. I wanna see someone be rubbish.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    We can only hope that Big West is smart enough not to oversaturate the market by leaning too heavily on idol singers. The turnaround time between the end of Macross Delta and the announcement of this new Macross project is so fast, you could almost wonder if Kawamori's going to be involved or if we're headed into another series helmed by someone else. Isn't he still committed to some project over in China that kicked off shortly before Delta ended? It'd be interesting to see what another creator could do with the franchise, since we haven't had an official Macross narrative drawn up without Kawamori since Macross II: Lovers Again and its prequels. My girlfriend had a fun idea for a Macross series... she suggested something like Terrestrial Defense Enterprise Dai-Guard could be done with a less-than-competent PMC, with a bunch of green pilots from a private security company who are only used to routine flights and cargo escorts suddenly get dropped into a combat situation and have to make it up as they go along because nobody expected to ever have to actually fight anyone. It'd be a great subversion of all of stories like the Macross Frontier and Macross Delta series where incredibly well-funded, allegedly-elite PMCs ride roughshod over the military. We already got an OVA that's all flash and no substance with a nonsense plot... it's called Macross Zero.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Will you settle for a yaoi love triangle between three men named Yuri?
  15. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, couldn't the same description of "a serious story with a silly plot" be applied to almost any Macross title? I think that's part of its charm, really. The focus on the love plot over the war plot and solving interstellar conflicts with bouncy pop songs or a power ballad isn't exactly gritty realism in sci-fi. It keeps the story's overall tone light and optimistic and prevents it from getting bogged down with the WAR IS HELL amateur dramatics that most other mecha shows are so fond of. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and that helps keep it fun... along with the knowledge that you're going to get something that passes for an uplifting ending. For me, it's infinitely preferable to Gundam... which sometimes gets so caught up in its WAR IS HELL message that it feels like the staff is out to exact as much misery on the viewer as possible. After watching Macross you can leave feeling pretty good. After watching certain Gundam shows like Victory you leave feeling the need for an antidepressant or maybe a stiff drink. It's become such a staple for that franchise that the rare optimistic Gundam series feels alien and wrong. I'll be quite happy if that state of affairs continues in the new series. Frontier did a good job of keeping it fun. Delta's first half did too.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Did I identify you in particular as someone who wants that? I'm fairly certain I didn't. I was just giving a nice, general example of the tone we see in new series wishes from people who didn't like Delta here and on Facebook. I'm sure you can predict what I'm going to say before I can even say it... "I want another series like Macross Plus" "I want a gritty, hardcore war series" "I want a bleak, depressing series about Destroids" All of which basically boil down to wanting Macross to regress to an earlier state... something more along the lines of Macross Plus or Macross II: Lovers Again, which is odd considering the amount of badmouthing the latter used to get on here. It's a safe bet we'll get none of the above, especially given that Macross's creators have an avowed dislike for retreading old ground. There's nothing wrong with expressing distaste for a particular show, but the "I didn't like X, therefore it is objectively crap" needs to stop. The fandom in the west is going to have to reconcile itself to the fact that it is NOT Macross's target demographic, and it never will be. Macross's creators are going to aim to please the target demographic in Japan, and our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it is incidental at best. The unpleasant truth is that it's hard to NOT sound like a grumpy old fart when the complaints are framed as "it's not like it was back in the day". Isn't that basically what Macross Delta was? The mecha, as pretty as they were, were practically an afterthought. It did the music sales a world of good, but the rest of the merchandising is kind of a limp fish by comparison. The most balanced offerings are the ones that seem to play the best in Japan, we need a new series that seamlessly marries the romance plot, the music, and the mecha action the way Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Macross 7, and Macross Frontier did. (Even Macross 30 did what I'd characterize as a fairly good job integrating the singing into the story and gameplay mechanics.) I'll consider it a rousing success if we get better story-action integration, a plot that flows well without the rushed pacing of Delta's second half and Frontier's last three episodes, and maybe some love for the New UN Forces instead of PMCs. If I were to really get my wish, we'd get a ~50 episode Macross series that's properly paced for that length, so they can afford to lavish extra attention on characterization and the war subplot. You sure you're not mistaking Kawamori's involvement in storyboarding for that, because I don't recall seeing him get a writing credit for the series. Toshizo Nemoto did the series composition (the plot outline) and had two supporting writers doing the actual screenplay with him. Ooo... I think I touched a nerve. The ad hominem isn't helping you either. "Depth" is definitely not a property I would ascribe to Macross Plus's story... it's fast-paced, simple, and straightforward. There aren't any real twists in the story, no deeper meanings behind people's actions, everything is laid out neatly and precisely with the bare minimum necessary backstory to frame the events without getting bogged down in exposition. That's fine for an OVA, but a series should have a bit more to it than that.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    ... are you serious? You DO know that Shoji Kawamori didn't write Macross and that Yoshiyuki Tomino didn't write Gundam, right? They created the core concepts for their respective series and directed (in whole or in part) the shows that came from those concepts, but the screenplays for the shows and movies in their respective metaseries mostly came from other pens. You could argue neither is a fantastic writer based on their solo writing credits in those franchises (Macross Zero and Reconguista in G respectively), but neither can be credited with the actual writing in most of the titles in the franchises they created. You can't blame Kawamori for the writing in Macross Delta because he wasn't the writer... Toshizo Nemoto was. Also, that argument lost any real weight it might've had when you tried to pass that hack Hideo "Nanobot Textdump" Kojima off as a writer of any skill... the man is famous for mistaking obtuseness for depth.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Man, I wasn't gonna say it... but I was certainly thinking it loudly. There certainly is a parallel in that the fans here keep coming back to Macross Plus as if it were the platonic ideal of a Macross show, despite the fact that it didn't do very well in Japan and is almost literally Macross in name only, simply because it's darker and more action-oriented. Some of it starts to edge into this territory... which is all the more surreal for the fact that Macross is a happy-clappy triumph-by-the-power-of-love-and-understanding romance series set against a space war backdrop. It's Star Trek by way of Mobile Suit Gundam, not Warhammer 40K. There's no doubt in my mind the new series will be in a similar vein... all that jazz about peace, love, and understanding triumphing through music in a war brought about by a failure to communicate. ... no idea how you got that out of it, especially since the bombing was depicted as an attempt to stop the jerkass woobies from deploying a weapon they didn't understand that could cause a galaxy-wide mass extinction event and the whole thing ended with Windermere's Aerial Knights having a heel realization and turning on their boss. If anything, the anvilicious Aesop this time was "Nationalism as a response to fears about globalism will make you do stupid crap that will only hurt you and everyone else in the long run". Kawamori never was especially subtle about things like this. (Also, the riff on Newtype powers isn't exactly new... that was played with in Macross Frontier, but they've been doing affectionate nods to the Mobile Suit Gundam metaseries since the very beginning, when Battle City Megaroad was developed as an affectionate parody of 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam. Gundam has returned the favor many a time with nods to Macross... the iconic Zeta Gundam is explicitly one such homage.)
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Not to put a razor-fine point on it, but HannouHeiki hit the the mark with laser precision in the last sentence of his last post. A fair portion of the grumbling about Macross Delta has less to do with the quality of the series itself than it does the fact that the folks doing the grumbling aren't in the franchise's target demographic. It really does start to sound like old people grumbling about young people after a while, and when you think about it... it kind of is. Almost stereotypically so when it comes to the music. Trying to frame "it's not doing as well as Frontier" as a criticism doesn't make a ton of sense either, given that every previous Macross title can be found wanting by that lofty standard. If I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath for this new Macross series to go back to the way things were done in the 80's. Macross has never been a franchise that cared overmuch for nostalgia, so I'd expect the franchise to continue to move forward... and that means some of the periphery demographic of older fans is going to get left behind.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of... it's more like I'm establishing the base level of my expectations. All things considered, we can pretty much take it as read that the new Macross series is going to be visually impressive and have great music behind it. There's no reason to believe they won't achieve at least that much... and it's a hell of a thing that THAT'S what we can consider their minimum obligation with a new series. The only thing that's really in question here in production terms is whether the writers are up to the job. Frontier's were. Delta's weren't. There's no doubt in my mind that Macross 2018 will be eminently watchable. It's just a matter of whether it'll be exceptional, or merely good.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... for my money, Macross Delta was a mediocre mess that did a lot to undermine the confidence I had in Macross's creators after the huge success of Macross Frontier. No exaggeration, I loved Macross Frontier. It was, for me, the closest a Macross television series has come to perfection... with everything that makes Macross what it is, and almost all of it perfectly balanced. Its only noteworthy issues were that the pacing was rushed near the end and Ranka's participation in the love triangle was less than it should have been in the second half. She never made that same romantic comeback that Minmay achieved in the post-timeskip arc of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and that left the outcome of the love triangle feeling a bit like a foregone conclusion. All the same pieces were there in Macross Delta, but the writers did a lousy job putting them together. The music was fantastic, the main trio were some of the most likeable characters Macross has ever had, the mechanical designs were gorgeous, the character designs were mostly excellent, but the writing was a bloody trainwreck that failed miserably to seal the deal and tie it all together. That the potential was obvious, and obviously being wasted, made the show incredibly frustrating to watch. It could've been better than Frontier. It could've handily been my new favorite Macross series... but the writer tripped his team up at the starting line. Based on the last two shows, I have every reason to expect that the new Macross project will be visually stunning and musically exceptional. It'll take the Macross universe to somewhere new and different and add a few new wrinkles to the setting. What I have less confidence in is their writer's ability to tie it all together into a seamless package the way the writers of DYRL?, Plus, 7, and Frontier did. That's a tall order, and we're spoiled in that what's workmanlike for Macross is exceptional by the standards of many other franchises, but I'd love an excuse to keep my standards high.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Bingo... let's just say I've been down this particular road about half a dozen times before and wanted to head that one off at the pass, both due to the press's bad habit of forgetting that important bit of context about stability when talking about the applications of metallic hydrogen and because they tend to overstate the benefits of the stuff as well. Based on Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2, it's not clear if the hydrogen slush in the internal tanks is used as a coolant as well as the fuel for the compact thermonuclear reactor in atmospheric service. However, the book does suggest the fuel slush in the CTF-04 tanks was used both as fuel and as coolant for operations in space where radiative cooling isn't as effective. Overtechnology materials are acknowledged to have incredible thermal resistance, though. The hypercarbon composite armor of the VF-25 is noted to have a temperature resistance of 3,200 degrees C (that's about 5,800 degrees F). Reentry heat normally clocks in at about 1,650 degrees C.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Here's hoping they don't screw it up the way they did with Delta... good music is fine, but I'd like the whole Macross equation not just a piece of it.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Not a bad guess, but that's not the origin of The-Show-That-Must-Not-Be-Named's retcon. A few days after the retcon first came to light, I had a good long chat with that franchise's creative director about the change. He identified the origin of the retcon as being a line in their dub of Super Dimension Fortress Macross Ep.5, which referred to the engines of a VF-1 as "based on a reactor design". The writers of the licensed RPG went with metallic hydrogen as a fuel because 1. they weren't aware of any Macross source that stated what fuel VFs use, 2. they wanted something exotic and sci-fi sounding, and 3. they saw some stuff about metallic hydrogen being toyed with as a possible fuel for NASA rockets and SSTO spaceplanes in one of that year's issues of Popular Science. (The mecha in Genesis Climber MOSPEADA are powered by advanced hydrogen fuel cells.) Metallic hydrogen's actual benefit to space travel is pretty minimal... more like nonexistant if there's no way to make it retain its metallic state without nearly 5 million atmospheres of compression. Under that much pressure, damn near any gas would make pretty effective rocket just by releasing the pressure in a controlled fashion like a giant bottle rocket. The only real benefit it offers is packing efficiency, since the same amount of mass is packed into approximately 1/10th the fluid volume of slush hydrogen and you still need a mass-equivalent volume of fuel oxidizer. Variable fighters wouldn't have a lot of call for metallic hydrogen, since it's best applied to scenarios where you need to store a lot of fuel in a very small space. By nature, the compact thermonuclear reactor at the heart of a thermonuclear reaction turbine engine is very fuel efficient thanks to the use of heavy quantum to provide continuous gravitational compression of the fuel. The efficiency only improved with time, so thermonuclear reaction burst turbines and Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines are even gentler on their fuel supplies despite an expanded airframe enabling them to carry more fuel internally... unless you're flying a Sv-262, where the transformation system screws you out of most of that.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Delta had a plot?
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